caliban glass

Danny rolls his eyes at his father’s words that someone needs to be held accountable for this. A petulant reaction, like it was nothing more than being grounded or losing his allowance or any other punishment a typical teenager might have incurred. Danny knows it’s nothing of the sort. That if the Council did get involved and wanted someone to be punished for this, it would most likely be in a bloody, awful way. At best, they’d kill him. Hell, maybe they’d even make it quick. At worst…

There were plenty of things worse than death. Aunt Shirley hadn’t gotten it far off the mark when she said the Council would flay them all. Maybe not in the typical sense of the word, but one of the harshest punishments for a magic user was being stripped of their magic. A painful punishment, to put it lightly. Growing up, he’d thought them to be cautionary tales whenever his parents or family talked about those who’d had their powers stripped. But then he’d met someone who’d been given that punishment. 

A mindless husk. It’s what Danny would describe him as. Emotionless, thoughtless except to serve the witch he’d been assigned to. Whatever they’d done to strip him of his power, they’d also stripped him of his humanity. Whether it had been the pain or torture of having that kind of power syphoned from his veins or whether it was something they’d done while they were inside there, Danny hadn’t known. But it had a profound impact on Danny, even after all these years. 

He wondered if that future was waiting for him now. 

For the most part, he’d spaced on the rest of the conversation. Assuming he already knew where his father was heading with it. That Danny would accept whatever punishment was coming his way, take responsibility for his actions, everything he expected from the old man. 

Except that’s not what his father was implying and it drew Danny’s gaze back to him, sharp and intense even if his father missed the look, eyes instead on Cal as his brother engaged him in just how stupid that plan was. 

While Uncle Eamon was an eccentric character, broke the rules as much as he upheld them, and seemed as much on the outs from this family as Danny was, Danny still liked him. Still knew he wouldn’t be half as powerful as he was without being under Eamon’s tutelage. And he’d been there for him in those early days of the…scarring. When he’d thought he was losing his mind, some days he still thought that way, but Eamon had told him it was just a side effect. Eamon had been the one to tell him how to handle the fear. How to not let it win. 

It’s why he stands here now, staring at his father like he’d grown a second head. “Fuck you,” he spits, ignoring Cal’s words and the room quiets for a moment, his father taking a deep breath because it’s a blatant show of disrespect but respect is the last thing on Danny’s mind. “No fucking way I’d ever let you do that. I’d put a bullet in my own head before that ever happens.” 

“Danny…-” this time it’s their mother who speaks in reaction, rising from her place next to Cal and Danny glances at her, ready to argue her, but there’s a look on her face he hadn’t expected. Fear. Sadness? He couldn’t tell. 

“I mean it,” he tells her and it’s only because that’s still his mother and he’d never had as much problem with her as he had with their father that he takes the bite out of the words. “I’m the one who did it, I’ll go down before I let anyone else take that for me.” He turns back to his father, everyone else in the room forgotten for a moment and in the back of his mind, he agrees with Cal. This should have been a private conversation. 

“That’s the man you want me to be, right? I’ll take fucking responsibility.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

It was a quick escalation, and if part of Cal wasn’t surprised, half expecting it to come sooner, it was just as disappointing as the whole conversation had been from the start. Their father scrambling to hold onto any meaning their name still had, thinking that sacrificing one of them might somehow buy their way back into the Council’s good graces, and Danny still lashing out first and sorting out the wreckage later. Any amusement he might take away from just how familiar it all was, didn’t last long, and not after his mother stood to move to Danny’s side.

“You will do what I tell you,” his father snapped back, words that sounded as firm and inarguable as they always had, and hadn’t meant anything in years. Not to his brother and not to Cal, half expecting his brother to start laughing, but their mother was at his side by then, fingers reaching for his arm and words almost too quiet to hear.

Everything except a “please,” the rest of it hushed to start, and drowned beneath every harsh word off their father’s tongue.

“The man I want you to be wouldn’t be standing there acting like a spoiled child. I am trying to protect you. Both of you.” His gaze shifting briefly between his two sons, and later Cal would wonder if there was any truth to that, if it was his children or his bloodline he was worried about, and he would probably die twice before ever getting the answers. What worried him more was the way the man pushed away from his desk, a slow approach towards Danny that had warning bells going off in the back of Cal’s head. “But you put us in this position and now is not the time to show more loyalty to a lunatic than your own flesh and blood. What I wanted-”

“That’s enough.” He slipped off the loveseat as the space dwindled down to a few feet, positioning himself between his father and his brother, and that felt just as familiar. And as always, his brother was his first concern, that comment about a bullet scaring him more than he had any intention of letting any of them see. “You. I don’t ever want to hear you talk like that again.” Before his head turned back to their father. “And you are just making things worse.” 

Somewhere in the back of the room he heard Aunt Shirley laughing at that, but he didn’t take his gaze off his father. Seeing something cold look back at him, the man’s mouth starting to open before Cal rushed to fill the space. “Right now the Council doesn’t know anything. So instead of volunteering and making their job easier why don’t we focus on shutting our fucking mouths and keeping it that way?” 

He glanced briefly to the rest of their family, quiet observers that he still wished had never been included in any of this. “Does anyone have a problem with that plan?” 

Danny’s jaw hurt with how much he was holding his tongue. With how much his teeth ground together and there was a clear argument back at his father that he didn’t think he should have to justify. Did he think for a second what it would do to the rest of the family? He wasn’t totally heartless. But did it matter? Did another nail in the coffin really mean that much when Caliban would have been dead? When they would have lost one of their own instead of just another misfire from a banned spell? 

It was comments like that one from his father that kept him from coming home. That kept him at an arm’s distance because the Glass name meant more to his father than the people who bore it. It has Danny leaning against the bookshelf, his hands locked behind him and jaw jutted, looking all the part of a person who didn’t want to be standing in this room. 

Who didn’t belong anymore. 

Cal’s question, however, at least piques his interest and ensures that his mind doesn’t wander too far from the conversation at hand. If nothing else, it has their father getting to the point. Has them bypassing the lecture mode that Cal had already given him in that bar days earlier. He’s positive it’s not all their father wants to say about it, but for the moment, at least, Cal’s successful in diverting the energy into something more productive. And Danny couldn’t be more thankful for that. 

“I do,” their father replied, almost reluctantly and his gaze stays on Caliban for a moment. It makes Danny wonder if they’d had words before he entered the room. If the man had even said he was glad Cal was okay, glad he was still alive, or if he’d left that all up to their mother, whose hand was resting on Cal’s arm in silent support. It makes that distance Danny’s put himself at feel suddenly greater and it almost surprises him that he wishes at least his mother would have said something to him. 

“Right now, it seems we’re still simply in the rumor stage of it all,” their father says, coming out from behind his desk and leaning against it instead, his arms crossed over his chest. “My contacts at the police department tell me their official reports have…been misplaced.” 

It draws a smirk from Danny’s face that he turns his head to look at the door and try to hide. He’d done his part. Or more importantly, Greer had. He’d been none too happy about it, their discussion almost as painful as this one, but…he’d pulled through. The detective knew the truth. Danny owed him. He owed him everything. 

“But, it won’t be long before the Council gets involved, rumors or not.” The Council. If the PD policed the human aspect of the magic world, the Council was an entity all it’s own. Members of all the high houses. Their father used to have a seat at their table. Not anymore.

From the corner, Aunt Shirley lets out a bitter laugh. “All of this we know, Rupert, dear,” she toasts him with her drink, takes a sip. “They’ll flay us all. So where does your plan come in?” 

♯ ♯ ♯

Despite himself, it was still an effort for Cal to press his lips together and keep the smile from his face at his aunt’s interruption. That question of just what made his father think a larger family meeting was preferable to a simple conversation between the four of them, but it was a question the man had let go unmarked and so it remained an idle speculation, simply watching his father take a breath to try and get out whatever it was he’d called them here to say.

“Someone will have to be held accountable for this,” he said. Gaze slipping briefly to Danny, and Cal couldn’t stop himself from moving at that, a subtle shift forward to sit on the edge of the loveseat. A protectiveness that he didn’t put any effort into hiding right now, not when it drew his father’s gaze back to him and then to the family still sitting there drinking their tea like this was just any casual Sunday. “The Council isn’t going to allow this to go unpunished, but if they take their blood price from one, there’s no need to punish the rest.”

His uncle asked the question, one that shouldn’t have involved so much prying, but this time Cal kept his mouth shut. “And just who are you volunteering? Not yourself.”

“No.” Not a surprise to anyone, but it only had Cal’s attention moving briefly to Danny before his gaze shifted past him towards the door. Wondering quietly if his brother was really the last one invited to this meeting or if he should expect the Council’s enforcers to show up at their door next, because he couldn’t imagine his father really believed either Caliban or Danny would submit without a fight.

Which made it almost surprising when it wasn’t either of them he submitted to their family’s judgement, any attempted subtlety ruined when there was one member of the family blatantly missing from any of this. One who might show the most interest out of any of them that Danny had gone and raised Cal from the dead, who would want to poke and prod at him and demand to see the scar on his chest. “But there is someone who has committed plenty of sins against our name without retribution.” 

For a moment it was a thought Cal put real contemplation into, wondering if it was really such a terrible solution. His brother liked their uncle, trusted him, had probably been raised more by him than anyone else in this room, Cal included, because he would never fully understand the kind of magics his brother had at his beck and call. But he didn’t know that he trusted him, either.

That didn’t mean he deserved to die for him, so the consideration only lasted a moment. “That’s not a plan. Can we just talk about this for a minute in private?”  

His name was sharp on his father’s tongue. A reminder of just how welcome he was here. On far he’d dug his own whole of detachment with this family and if anything, he finds it funny that this if the reunion they were having. Not some private conversation, not his father or mother showing up at his front door to try and talk things out so they could work on this as a family. It was an assertion of power to call together the family like this. An assertion of power and decorum that Danny didn’t believe for a second. 

He only gets to inhale and part his lips with a nasty comment back before his brother takes the wind from his sails. It has him snorting again, because Caliban had always been somewhere on that neutral line, not really taking sides. But there was a reason he was one of the few people in their family who Danny still spoke to. Cal, his cousins, and their uncle, who was noticeably absent from this gathering as well. It lent itself to just more frustration, because the man was still a Glass, whether their father wanted to accept that or not. 

Their father ignores Cal’s glib remark and his eyes focus on Danny with something unreadable in them. Something he can’t quite seem to place. So he doesn’t try. Heading over to the stand near the bookshelf, he’s not going to sit down in this room and put himself anywhere near vulnerable. And for a moment, he ignores his father’s glare, too. Lifting his gaze to instead focus on a familiar black marble bust used as a bookend on one of the shelves. He nonchalantly lifts his hand, turning it around slowly so it’s facing the back of the bookshelf instead of peering out into the room. 

There’s no meaning behind the motion and normally he’s not so obvious in his own…neurosis, if he could call them anything. It was a move of habit. How many times had he done the same during these family meetings. The bust seemed to attract the spirits who’d attached themselves to him. A marble bust of no consequence other than it’s eyes followed Danny wherever he moved. It’s mouth formed shapes and fangs and horrors if left faced outwards for too long. No one else saw it, just Danny and a few years ago, he’d thrown that marble bust at their father in a fit of rage at both him and the mark on his soul that had him seeing things that weren’t there. 

His Dad should be happy all he got this time was a sideways glance to see if the man remembered that argument. 

A sigh escapes his father and the man keeps his gaze on him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” 

Danny lets out a bitter laugh and he knows that’s not the reaction his father wants. He tilts his head back and shakes his head, because this was going to be a painful family meeting if he was already jonesing to get out of her and drown himself in a bottle. “Of course I fucking do. I’m the one who did it.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

None of it did much to make their father settle, Caliban closing his eyes briefly when Danny didn’t even try to restrain himself. Walking in the room with hackles already raised and ready to fight, and it left Cal torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to leave the loveseat so he could cover his mouth before he said anything else. Because right now they were both on shaky ground, and while he didn’t imagine either of them were prepared to start groveling before their parents and the rest of the family, he was absolutely certain this wasn’t helping..

When he did refocus on his father, there was only tension keeping his spine stiff, his gaze still focused on Danny and hands curled into white knuckled fists he pressed against his desk. “And did you ever stop and think for one second just what that would do to the rest of the family?” A question he didn’t even pause to wait for an answer to, barreling forward with a familiar amount of disdain. “You know the laws, you know the bans already placed on us.” 

“So you thought telling the entirety of the Glass family was going to do us any favors?” It was a swift interruption, one followed by a quick glance to the corner. “No offense Aunt Shirley.”

A smile greeted him, one he was sure was a little brighter for whatever she’d poured out of that flask. “None taken.” 

He felt his mother’s hand settle on his arm in caution then, but it did what he intended, and when he looked back at his father his attention had shifted momentarily off his little brother. Even if it didn’t ease any of that tension, his jaw still a hard line, anger and frustration glinting somewhere in his darkened gaze. And he wondered if it came down to it just how willing he might really be to throw either one of his sons to the wolves. 

“But since we’re all here, I assume you had a suggestion on how to handle this?” Everything about his word choice was purposeful, because it had to be, and that had been a strange lesson to learn about his own father. He had never mouthed off the way Danny did and rarely challenged the man so blatantly, but at some point Caliban had found that the man’s power over him was dependent almost entirely on how much he actually allowed him to claim. So he didn’t ask for orders anymore, and certainly not this time. Just his opinion, even if he was sure he wasn’t going to like it.  

The gate shut behind the Lincoln, a metal clang that used to mean fortification and protection in Danny’s eyes. A gated mansion that buzzed its guests in through the intercom and now, it felt more constricting than protecting. It had been two years since he’d last been home and he didn’t even know if he felt the word belonged to it anymore. He had an apartment on the other side of the city, away from the Glass family manor, passed down generation through generation. 

He used to love this manor. Loved running through its halls when he was a kid. Loving playing in the courtyard out back or the hedge maze. But it had fallen unkempt and overgrown in recent years. And now, he could only look at it with a certain disdain. Especially given that it wasn’t his choice to come here. 

Antony had woken him this morning. One of his father’s bodyguards and one of the few that was still employed. He didn’t know what his father had offered him to stay on, but the man had and he didn’t begrudge Antony for it. There was something to be said for loyalty. And when he’d woken him up this morning, it hadn’t been rudely. If anything, the man had been patient while Danny had gotten his bearings, plagued by nightmares and he’d gone to bed too sober to sleep through them this time. 

It was a bad day. The ghosts were active.

Meaning he was going to fucking hate the family meeting his father had called. Antony parked the car and Danny begrudgingly got out. He wouldn’t make the man man-handle him inside the manor or have to beg him, because he respected the guy enough to put his own quarrel with his father to the side. He knew why he was here and as he stepped through the main doors of the manor, he didn’t need Antony to tell him where everyone was. The parlor. Where his father always conducted business. 

He only slowed and put on an annoyed looked once he was outside the doors, walking in without hesitation and unsurprised to find Cal already there. His father behind his mahogany desk, his mother in a love seat chatting idly with, or at, he couldn’t tell, Cal. A few other of their family were around the room. An aunt, a couple cousins and their grandfather’s second wife, not of blood relation, but still married into their family and revered as such, sat at their father’s right, drinking tea. 

“Jesus, who died?” Danny snorted, amusing himself because he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around them. He knew exactly why this meeting had been called. 

♯ ♯ ♯

It wasn’t a surprise, but it was a disappointment to find that the rest of the Glass family caught the rumor before the week was even out. Even with their best attempts at damage control, sweeping something like a death and a resurrection under the rug had been a long shot at best. And at worst, their father would take matters into his own hands and dole out punishment for that himself, a quietly held fear that had made sure Cal was at the manor long before he thought his brother would even be opening his eyes in the morning.

Though it was always odd coming back, watching the erosion of childhood in every bit of rust and overgrown patch of grass trying to force its way through stones. It was both an entertaining and dismal image even trying to imagine their mother tearing up weeds with her own hands, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she had regrets about just which family she’d tied herself to.

Whether she did or not, she still greeted him with a hug, her hands on his face afterwards as she studied him. More affection than he was used to anyone displaying beneath the manor’s roof, and he didn’t know if it was concerning or appreciated.

His father was always harder to read, his name the only greeting, but the quick glances the rest of the family shot him as they arrived were much easier to interpret.

But if his presence kept the room hushed, his aunt to start trying to slip something out of a flask and into her tea, and his mother to ramble in low tones next to him, his brother’s appearance in the doorway shut most of them up. Except for Danny himself of course, the first words off his tongue quick to drag his father upright, his brother’s name turned into a sharp warning on his tongue. Tone alone familiar, an echo of their childhood and a simple reminder of every bit of tension left between little brother and the man who’d raised them. “Daniel.” 

Whatever else either of them might follow it with, Cal tried to interrupt it with his own glibness. “Now that’s just rude. Dead men have feelings too.” 

It’s not a surprise when Cal tells him no. More grace than Danny would have given if their roles were reversed. His brother was usually always the calm, cool, collected one. Danny was hot and cold depending on which second of the day it was. Flipping between emotions on a dime and if he was aware of it, he had no real motivation to change it. It’s who he was. It’s who he would stay and even if he hadn’t agreed with all the points Cal made, maybe that was a good enough reason in itself to not put himself in the same room as the Vasilios. 

He wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue the way Cal could. 

“Fuck smart,” he grumbles, turning away from his brother, but there’s no real argument to be had and he falls easily into relenting to Cal’s logic. He can grump about it all he wants and maybe he will for a while longer, but the truth of the matter was he knew it was the best way to go about this. At least for now. At least until Cal found out something more about what he’d gotten himself involved with. What the fallout of all of this was going to be. 

If it occurred to him that maybe Cal’s part in it was over, because they didn’t punish the resurrected, only the one who’d made it happen, Danny doesn’t dwell long on it. That thought would lend itself to regret and he had none. No time for it in the litany of other stressors he found himself dealing with. Cal was alive, Danny had made sure of it, what was there to regret? No matter what happened now, it was nothing he’d ever feel sorry for. 

“Fine,” he finally grumps at him, swirling his glass around for a moment before taking another sip. Definitely slowing down, if only because he had no room left in his stomach to put the rest of it. He almost leave it at that. Almost ends the conversation there, thanks is brother for the beer because he assumes he’s paying and is ready to shoot the shit with him instead. 

But he can’t get the feel of Cal’s cold arm around his shoulders. Of his brother’s lips on repeat saying, “It’s cold, Danny,” until his senses gathered back around him and Danny knows the spell he used was forbidden. Not only for the nature of it all, but because even for a necromancer, it hadn’t been typical. Nothing given to the veil in return for Danny’s withdrawal of his brother’s soul. Life for a life was the most typical. Something to sacrifice, an animal, another human, something. 

He didn’t know many other necromancers who could do it without and he still didn’t know what that meant for his brother. Certain that it was Cal who’d come back, certain that it would stick, but…Danny was still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the whole thing. 

“Just do me a favor, yeah?” he asks, looking at his brother and it’s as close to playful as he’ll get. “When you go to talk to them, don’t get yourself killed, yeah? Shit stings bringing you back.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

Cal couldn’t help but roll his eyes this time, his brother’s response not unexpected, but it also wouldn’t surprise him if it was the only one he got. Fuck smart, and it was both funny and not, because if it seemed fitting for Danny to say, he also thought that his brother underestimated even himself sometimes. That it was easy to mistake him for stupid when emotion ran stronger in his blood than logic. Not always his best trait, but Cal also thought it was the reason he was alive right now. Because if Danny had stopped to consider self-preservation, maybe he wouldn’t have done it.

Or maybe he would still do the exact same thing. It was pointless to dwell on it, enough when he finally got a more solid answer. A fine dragged past his brother’s lips, but it was good enough for now. And he thought maybe that would be the end of it, so it left him half surprised when Danny asked him for a favor, Cal lifting a brow in his direction while he waited for it. Just as unexpected, a sentiment buried beneath the sarcasm tacked on the end. It had him quirking his mouth to the side in a slight smile, considering it for a moment before looking at his glass.

“Thank you. I mean it.” It was more of a struggle than it should’ve been to find the right tone, the words entirely sincere and entirely foreign. Thank you usually meant a debt owed, and if that didn’t always apply to family, it still wasn’t anything he was in the habit of saying. Especially not for anything this big, trying to tamp down the fear that Danny would end up paying for Cal’s life with his own. 

But it was hard to regret that he was alive, even if it came with scars and that coldness in his chest that wouldn’t quite fade. It was still better than the alternative, it still meant he could sit here and give Danny shit, drink a beer with him and talk about what tomorrow might look like because he still had one. So if he couldn’t promise his brother with absolute certainty that he wasn’t going to get himself killed just by opening his mouth to the Vasilios, he could promise him that he definitely didn’t want to. 

Still. Maybe he couldn’t look at Danny when he said it, gratitude as foreign as the sincerity that accompanied it, but he made sure to catch his gaze for the next part. “But don’t ever do it again.”

Danny makes a face when Cal asks about his cop friends. Friends wasn’t exactly the way he’d put it. Detective Greer had reached out to him a couple years ago on a case that was giving the PD trouble. No other witch had wanted to touch it. The deceased had been a known demonologist. A summoning gone wrong and while demons weren’t exactly against the law like resurrections were, this demonologist had been notorious for losing control. Notorious for wreaking havoc and his ties to the power families of the city were convoluted and worrisome. 

And, he’d been Danny’s best friend, at the time.

While it had caused some stir and ultimately had lent itself to ensuring he had a quicker falling out with his father than if he’d refused to involve himself, it had also earned him a reoccurring gig with the PD as consultant. With Detective Greer, more importantly. A man who’d used Danny’s own affiliation with the deceased to get him in on the case. They’d not started off on the best of terms. The Detective holding certain elements of the case and his past over his head whenever he could. To ensure he behaved on the job and didn’t take off on his own personal vendetta against whoever had murdered his friend. 

It had grown into something different after that. Danny didn’t think even the detective had thought it would be more than a one time thing. But it had been and what used to be a reluctant, one sided partnership, became more of a mutual respect. It still didn’t mean he had “cop friends.” Didn’t meant he could just play the PD in his favor, but he knew that’s not what Cal really meant by it. He had an in, might as well see if he could use it. 

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do,” he tells his brother, because there’s no point in sharing those thoughts. It’s a place to start and he comes to the same conclusion his brother does. What else could they do? 

It’s the next idea that has Danny frowning and looking over at him. “Not without me,” he says, like that should be obvious, but he knows even as he’s saying it that it’s probably not something his brother will go for. Cal being alive meant they knew a necromancer had brought him back. Danny showing up next to him to surprise them would only solidify which one of the Glass family it had been. Still, he doesn’t like the idea of his brother going back to them alone.

♯ ♯ ♯

He nodded his head at his brother’s agreement, taking that for what it was and not pressing for more. Ignoring any curiosity if it was one of his friends that had asked him to come identify the body, a thought still strangely disconnected from himself. Trying to picture it was a thought that still left him cold, his body left abandoned on the concrete with his blood all around him. Every small reminder that he hadn’t just been blacked out or asleep, but gone, his soul somewhere on the other side, uncertain if it was a blessing or a curse that his memory of just what that looked like was so hazy. Maybe when he was sure his life was something he’d get to hold onto, he’d look at it more closely, but for now it was pushed aside for more relevant questions.

But if his brother had agreed easily to his end, he tried to protest Cal’s, a thought that drew a scoff from him he didn’t try to temper. Dismissal of that idea that didn’t require a great deal of extended thought, and he wondered if he really had to paint a picture why. They were already on dangerous ground, and if he didn’t think Danny would let him get away with handling it entirely by himself, threats aside, he could at least try to protect him as much as possible. 

“Yes, without you,” he told him solidly. 

“If they don’t know what happened, you being there is going to raise the question of why?” And that was simply telling of the nature of their relationship, even if it wasn’t a secret to either one of them. Work wasn’t somewhere their lives often intersected, a truth that went both ways and only illustrated by how little Cal asked about those cop friends. Nothing he had resented either, and if he hoped the feeling was mutual, the fact was that it didn’t change anything either way. He still preferred to keep his business to himself, and if he’d had a choice this time would be the same.  “And if they do, it’s just going to put a big glowing neon sign over your head.”

But even with his own threats to burn it all to the ground if he had to, he didn’t begrudge Danny the few answers he’d given him this time. He owed him something, because he might have just ruined his own life, just to make sure Caliban kept breathing. “We’ve gotta play this smart.” 

Danny’s mouth quirks side to side as he processes that. Janina Vasilios. Dorian’s sister, both heirs to the Vasilios legacy and each formidable in their own rights. That they came to Cal for a “babysitting” gig as his brother called it, didn’t really sit well with Danny. But things rarely did when it came to the jobs Cal did. His brother didn’t share much with him, whether by choice or simply because he had no obligation to tell Danny what was going on in his life, it didn’t matter. 

And honestly, it wasn’t what Danny was focused on now. 

Things had gone sour on the job. Cal made it sound like maybe he’d just gotten caught in the crossfire for someone gunning for Vasilios and in that case, he was just a pawn in it all. A barrier between whoever had fried Cal and the Vasilios heiress. That was an easier thing to take in than the idea that someone had been gunning for a Glass. Danny could handle the idea that his brother just fucked up on the job easier than the idea that someone had lured him into some sort of trap. 

The thing Danny was focusing on was the idea that a house like Vasilios knew the Cal was supposed to be dead. Regardless of where their allegiance lay, that bit of information was invaluable and could easily be held over their heads. Danny may not be on the best of terms with his parents, but is a Vasilios brought that to them and pointed the finger Danny’s way? His family would either cave to the demands that followed or…hell, maybe they’d hand him over for sacrifice to pay for the crime. 

The thought had him snorting and he took a sip of his beer, like maybe he should savor it because it might be the last he got in this lifetime. 

“Great. Can’t wait to see how that plays out,” he mutters, watching the bartender come over and gesture towards bringing them another round. He shakes his head and leans further over the bar, laying his chin on his arms, jaw steeled as he tries to think of where to go from here. Lay low, Cal had started this whole thing with. You shouldn’t have done that. He’d lectured him on. It was all too late now. He’d done what he’d done and now he’d take whatever came in stride. But he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. 

♯ ♯ ♯

Too much silence stretched out after the words, too much time to consider his mistakes and what the fuck either of them were going to do next. But all it took was a glance at his brother to solidify that he had to do something. The kid had brought him back from the dead, and it wasn’t just the act itself, but the sentiment behind it that meant more. There were few people he was close to, only one who would break the rules of nature for him, and that meant he couldn’t do less than the same. And he wouldn’t see him go down for this.

Janina might know what he’d done, her brother might know, there were a handful of other people who had seen his body, including the cops on the scene, but mortals were easier to work around than witches. They could be bribed easier, bought off, enchanted if it came down to it not to remember anything they didn’t want them to. Cal’s brand of magic ensured it wouldn’t be any gentle, delicate removal of memories, just more scorched earth inside someone’s head instead of on pavement, but it was an option, if it was what it came down to. 

“You’ve got cop friends, yeah? See if you can get to whoever was on scene.” Which would be one problem out of the way, and it was what his brother had been asking him for. Something to keep himself busy with, a way to help, even if it wasn’t going after whoever had ripped Caliban open in the first place. But maybe if they started cauterizing every loose end, then the only one left would be the one responsible.

Which still left him quiet for a moment, a sinking dread about what came next, a loose end that he might just end up tied to. There was some slim possibility that Janina didn’t see the exact aftermath, that Cal had done his job, stood as guard dog and babysitter while she’d taken off, but it wasn’t anything he was going to depend on. 

And if she knew, if they knew, there wasn’t a lot of leverage he had to keep them quiet. Nothing they might want. Nothing except Cal himself. “I’ll talk to Vasilios.”

Cal relents in the next moment and the name that rolls off his tongue has Danny watching him for a sign that it’s a joke. Of course it isn’t. And Cal says it’s who hired him. Vasilios. A family name that held sway in this town. Powerful and a reputation that got them somewhere. Several Vasilios’s held positions of power in their city. Danny didn’t know if any of them had actually helped in the downfall of the Glass family, but they sure hadn’t stepped up to stop it, either. 

“Shit, Cal,” he says, anger ebbing as quickly as it had come on and he turns back to the bar, leaning heavily across it and staring down at his beer with a frown marring his brow. Not just some punk witch that thought he wanted to take on Caliban Glass for the thrill of it. Vasilios. Dorian Vasilios. The one who hired him and if that didn’t necessarily mean it was the one who’d killed him, it was the one who’d set him on that path. 

It also certainly meant that they’d know Caliban wasn’t meant to be upright and breathing. They had the right insider knowledge that if Cal wasn’t being buried in their family catacombs, someone in the Glass family had broken the golden rule among witches. 

No unsanctioned resurrections. 

Whether it was the ethics of the thing, or the danger, or just the plain unknown of what abominations and nightmares dwelled beyond the veil, it was common law that resurrections were forbidden. It meant necromancers like Danny were usually kept on a short chain and it meant that families like theirs, where necromancy ran deep in their blood, were a danger and a threat to those that feared them. Maybe that’s why they’d been outcast. If he listened to his uncle talk about it, their family name was denounced to make sure that their necromantic bloodline was kept on a short leash. 

“What went wrong?” he asks, turning to look at his brother, because he’s still unclear what had happened that night. 

♯ ♯ ♯

Cal just hummed at his brother’s response, an amusement that didn’t last long when somewhere under his shirt there was a wicked scar scribed across his chest. Because of Dorian Vasilios, and it didn’t matter if it was directly or indirectly, it didn’t matter if he’d gotten him killed, the only thing he or anyone else would take away from the whole mess if he brought it into the light was that Caliban was supposed to be dead, and he wasn’t. The only thing anyone would care about wasn’t that someone made him that way, but that it hadn’t been allowed to stick. And his brother would be the one to suffer for that, not any of the Vasilios.

The awareness that he’d walked into a trap didn’t make the point of it much clearer, though he couldn’t quite convince himself that it was for either one of the two men sitting at this bar. Because it was hard to see the point in trying to drag the Glass family any lower than they already were. If anything, that just made them convenient at best, expendable at worst, and either one of them left him with a familiar bitterness in the back of his mouth. The kind that came with years of the same condescending looks, the same attempts to prove that he wasn’t anything that should be underestimated.

Maybe a point he failed to prove, and if there was a morbid laugh waiting on his tongue, he found it easier to swallow it down when the simplest answer was I died. Anything beyond that was mostly speculation, and if he had theories he wasn’t sure it was the smartest idea to share them with Danny.

“Guess that’s the question.”

Which didn’t answer half of what he was sure his brother was asking, what was supposed to go right, but it didn’t make him any quicker to supply those answers. Just because he was calmer now didn’t mean Danny couldn’t turn it back on in a second, and some days even Cal couldn’t tell exactly what would set him off. He was just used to it.  “Babysitting. Basically.” He shook his head, took another sip of beer. 

Cal asks him a question he can’t answer. Just what it is they’re supposed to be stopping. Danny doesn’t have that answer. Doesn’t know if anyone does, except for fate and whoever’s bringing it their way. He doesn’t know enough about what his brother was doing the night he died and he can only speculate, only tell himself stories that range from the minor to the major. To outlandish family wars that somehow fell into Cal’s lap. 

The day his phone rings and it’s their Dad’s number. 

Maybe that’s something that’s coming. Not maybe. He’s sure it will. Once his father gets word of what happened. Hell, maybe it’s wishful thinking that he’d even get a phone call. Maybe the man would show up. Or maybe it would be their Mom. Their parents were both equal in their power and influence in the Glass family. Though their Mom had married into it, she had come from another prominent family in the city. Something that was supposed to be a bridging of the gap. It hadn’t exactly worked in her favor. 

“Karma,” he grunts. It’s a tongue in cheek answer, but it may be closer to the truth than either one of them would care to admit. Magic wasn’t just a whimsical, malleable thing. It was practiced, it was power, it was like harnessing a hurricane and without complete control, without using the tried and true methods, that hurricane would wipe you off the face of the earth if handled improperly. 

His brother snaps at him, but Danny doesn’t back down. Maybe the only person that didn’t when Cal pulled that. There were times, yes, when Danny knew not to mess with his brother. He was a Glass, through and through, and Danny knew they all had limits. Knew when to recognize Cal had been pushed beyond his and luckily, that ire had never been aimed his way. This wasn’t near that, but it didn’t make it any less of a warning that Cal didn’t like what Danny was giving him. 

Still, it got him something. 

“Fine. Promise.” He shrugs and even as flippant as he says it, Danny’s never been one to break a promise once he’s made it. He reaches for his beer, pulling it over and taking a sip of it. “Oh, and you’re welcome, but still fuck you. Better get a fucking amazing birthday present this year, just saying.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

Cal snorted at the answer but he didn’t pursue it any further and that was entirely purposeful. Karma for what Cal had gotten them into or for what Danny had done to get him out of it, it didn’t really matter. It was going to come back on them one way or another and he already knew it, even if it was the second that had him texting his brother in the first place and it was what he was more worried about. There was a slim possibility that Cal had just gotten caught in the crossfire of something that had nothing to do with either of them, but bringing back the dead? That was crossing a line, and the only question was which direction that retribution would come from.

Either way, it wasn’t something he knew how to get ahead of, and if that lack of certainty wasn’t comforting, he’d been dead. It was unrealistic to expect anything to be when he could still feel the chill from that. 

“You’re a pain in my ass.” And if the words weren’t quite as sharp, those traces of his anger well within his restraint, no small part of him wanted to leave it at that. Leave him with just that threat instead of filling the space after with anything his brother might be able to use to start digging into this. Because it didn’t matter what he said, it didn’t matter that promise wasn’t something they broke, he still didn’t trust that his brother wouldn’t do something just as stupid to get himself killed. 

“Dorian Vasilios.” He glanced briefly at his brother’s face after he said it, letting the name sit there for a moment between them, plenty implied by that alone. A family that hadn’t fallen from grace, one that still had plenty of money and good will to go along with it. And if he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that they were as clean as their reputation might paint them, it had still been a good job. Maybe just some act of charity on their part, but he would’ve been just as stupid to turn it down, to let some opportunity pass to scrape some of the rust off their family name. At least until it had gotten him killed. “That’s who hired me.”

Frustration teems through him. Of course his brother doesn’t tell him. Cal may have made a mistake that cost him dearly, but that didn’t mean he was stupid. Didn’t mean that he was any less of a powerhouse than he’d been before this whole mess. It also didn’t mean that Cal was any more willing to let Danny in on what his jobs were, especially the overly dangerous ones. Where most of the times he was okay in not knowing what his brother was caught up in, right now it just feels like shit. Because he has nowhere to direct that anger. No one to even vent to. He wouldn’t lay that burden on Cal’s shoulders and he sure as fuck wouldn’t pick up the phone to call his parents. He hadn’t spoken to them in months. Years? Maybe? How the fuck long had it been? 

Promise me. Cal throws the words at him and he gives him a side glance, taking a breath because he can’t. Not a promise he’d ever been able to keep, no matter how hard he tried. He wants to argue Cal. Wants to tell him that there’s no way he’s going to let him cut him out now. Not when he still remembers picking up the phone and hearing the officer on the other end, asking him to come down to the morgue to identify a body. 

He’d handed the coroner a fat Benjamin when he and Cal had walked out of there. It had bought him a no questions, keep silent type of deal, but he didn’t know for how long and that’s exactly what Cal’s thoughts are in the next moment, when he says that he doesn’t want this coming back on him more than it already is. 

It’s only a matter of time. Before the police show up at his door or whoever killed Cal tries again. Danny doesn’t know enough about the job he was doing to make a judgment on which one it will be. But he still hasn’t said anything to his brother and even when the beer’s placed in front of him and Cal’s waiting for him to respond, he doesn’t say anything at first. 

He knows where he died. Knows that if Cal won’t tell him, that death might be lingering in the air still. Blood probably still soaked into the concrete that could fuel whatever incantation he’d need to amplify the echoes of death. He could find out and he thinks Cal probably knows that, too. But he knows what his brother’s asking. Not just lay low. 

Stay out of it. 

He chuffs, shaking his head and turns to give Cal a look. “Yeah? You think me laying low, jerking off and killin’ time in my apartment’s gonna stop it?” There’s something bitter in the words and it’s not entirely aimed at Cal. Doesn’t know who, or what, it’s aimed at, really. He hadn’t thought the consequences through. Knew there’d be some. Knew they could be violent. But there’d really been no other outcome. Cal had been dead. Danny hadn’t accepted it. 

“I don’t sit and stay very well,” he comments, finishing up the second beer and ignoring the third for the moment. He turns on the stool, facing his brother and leaning in, voice quieter. “They fucked you. Means they fucked me. Bring me in on whatever this is, Cal. Or I’m going after it myself.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

“Stop what? What do you think you need to stop?” The question came quick on the heels of his brother’s words, some attempt to derail him and whatever path his thoughts were barreling down. Because Cal didn’t really expect any answer except I don’t know, not when he didn’t know, and he’d been there. He knew what had happened, he could take the scene apart now and recognize that a trap had closed in around him, but what he couldn’t see yet was the point. Whether his death had been the goal or a means to an end, whether Danny bringing him back had upended those plans or just played right into them.

What he did know, what he could say with certainty, was that little brother charging back in to try and find out those answers would only make it worse. If someone hadn’t figured out that the elder Glass brother was supposed to be sliced open, his organs bagged and tagged, then it would only draw swift attention to it. And he wondered distantly what the punishment for that would be, if it was something they’d take out of his brother’s flesh or just remedy that there were two of them still alive and breathing.

Either way, he didn’t want to find out. And if he’d asked his brother to promise that he wouldn’t make him, he all but promised the opposite as he leaned in closer, the words too personal, too much of a familiar sentiment, a quick memory that his brother hadn’t just walked him out of there, but gotten him home, stayed with him until it was clear his body was his own again.

Until Cal could stop shaking, until his eyes had stopped looking so vacant and distant, until he’d found any other words for his little brother except I’m so fucking cold, Danny.

The beer was left momentarily forgotten, something sparking to life in him, even if he wasn’t a man who lost his temper, not like his little brother, not like most. “Hey.” His teeth snapped off that single word, a sharp demand for his brother’s attention.  “Don’t you dare try and pull that shit with me. You try and go after this on your own and I’ll go scorched earth on all of it. I’ll cover their fucking tracks for them, do you hear me?” Nothing but harsh sincerity in the words, that he would rather lose his own chance to claim some bloody retribution than risk his brother’s life, and maybe it was funny that was what they were both fighting about.  “If you can promise me you’ll follow my lead on this, then we’ll talk.” 

It pisses him off. More than he thought it would. His own words just a moment ago, asking if they’d known what they were getting themselves into when they’d used that sort of spell against his brother. The answer being yes wasn’t something he was prepared for. It has his jaw steeling, his fingers tightening around the glass in front of him with the last half of his beer swirling inside in amber waves. He’d crush it, if he could. For everything mending and healing that flowed through him, it was a wonder just how destructive he wanted to be sometimes. 

Mostly towards himself. Or the things in his near vicinity. 

This time, it took a much different route. This time, he focused that anger. Because throwing a beer glass at the shelves behind the bar wasn’t going to do either of them any good and he kind of liked the atmosphere here. Not a place that cared what their last name was. Just saw them as paying customers. 

They’d known who Caliban was. They’d known and they’d killed him anyway. Had it been a trap? Had it been a shot at their family? Just a bad witches duel gone wrong? None of it had been questions he’d pressed too harshly after Cal had woken back up from the dead. The immediate after had seen Danny making sure that the spell stuck. Didn’t have a time limit on it, or that what he’d actually brought back was his brother. A quick cleansing aura read had affirmed him of that much, even if it had seemed…off, somehow. 

And as much as he wanted to be mad at his brother for putting himself in that situation, it was what Cal did. He had a name, a reputation and frankly, a job to uphold. He was good at what he did. Always had been. Until the one time he wasn’t and it had cost him his life. Luckily, he had a brother who knew how to bargain with death. 

“Who was it?” he tries to ask nonchalantly. The rage building up in him making his jaw clench, teeth grind and even he knows he doesn’t pull off the flippant vibe he’d been going for. Cal may have had the more destructive magic, but Danny knew how to hold his own. More than that, he’d brought Cal back from beyond the veil. Without something to take his place. Maybe he’d throw the beyond a bone and send Cal’s killer in it’s place. 

♯ ♯ ♯

This time Cal was the one laughing, something short and only half-amused. That he would just turn a name over to a brother who was practically vibrating with every awful emotion he was trying to keep in check. Cal could guess at most of them, anger, retribution, a destructive streak that seemed at odds with the kind that had of magic that had put Caliban’s soul back in its frame. But while necromancy might’ve taken on a different form at his brother’s fingers, something brighter than the wretched shades their ancestors had pulled up from the dirt and the rot, but he was still a Glass. 

“No,” he said simply. “No way.” He couldn’t quite get himself to say it was none of his business, not when right now he felt like he owed him something, at least his gratitude, at least another beer, but the more honest and more relevant truth was that he wasn’t going to repay him by sending him after the people that had led Cal to his death.

“Just lay low. Alright? Promise me.” A repetition of words he didn’t really believe his brother was going to listen to the first time he said it and just as little faith in now. But he found quickly that everything else he would normally say got caught on his tongue. Danny didn’t need to worry about it, he didn’t need to worry at all, Cal could handle it, handle himself, and every single one of those things felt like a blatant lie now. They felt like truths that had been torn away the second those magics had ripped through his flesh and torn him open, and he found a hand pressing against his chest again, scrubbing idly at his sternum as the memory ripped through him just as quickly.

There should’ve been fear left behind, acknowledgement of his own mortality, hesitation at the thought that it might happen again, and all of those things were absent. There was just something cold left in its place and a memory he hadn’t been able to touch yet. Instead just waving at the bartender for another round, because he could give Danny that much.

“Uh huh,” Danny says, watching the side of Cal’s face for a moment and he’s not sure why there’s a sudden buzz in his chest. A…relief? No matter what their conversations were like, he could usually count on Cal to tell him the truth. Or at least tell him that the truth wasn’t something he could share. Even when it came in this form. A non-answer to a question he posed and it was better than Cal looking at him and saying no. That if the roles were reversed, he’d let him rot. 

It’s enough. Not a reassurance and he sure hadn’t been looking for one, but the same sort of tip toeing on uncertain ground they usually had around these kind of topics. Not that one of them dying had ever come up before. 

“Christ,” he says into the glass of his next beer and if the first when down smooth enough, he thinks he’ll nurse this one a bit more. Especially if Cal’s in a lecture type of mood. He can’t help the eyeroll at his brother’s words. Like it was that simple. Like he’d done it just to prove he could, or just because the power was at his fingertips. Danny had never been one to reach for power. He’d been reluctant when it had first manifested. More so than his father had been happy with, which had caused a rift between them from an early age. Of all the people in their family that had pushed him towards his own coming of age in magic, it had been their uncle that had gotten through to him. 

Funny, then, that it was that same uncle whose fucked up spell had left a festering wound on Danny’s soul. One that left him with night terrors, a dislike of mirrors and certainly a hatred for anyone but people he trusted putting their hands on him. 

“Yeah, well, you should have thought of that before you fucking got yourself Mercutio’ed, hmm?” he says, leaning closer to his bother and pointing towards where he knew an ugly, shoddily patched together scar sat ragged beneath his shirt. He stares at his brother, anger spiking, a sign of his fickle moods. Another hand points to him, no sign that this laying low idea applied to the people in this bar. “And what? Whoever did it didn’t realize who you fucking were? Didn’t know who I fucking was?” He shakes his head, like just his being is enough to explain why things like can and should hadn’t even come into play. 

“Pick your jobs better, ass.” He throws his beer back again to tamp down on anything else he might have to say about it, thoughts of nursing it going out the window. 

♯ ♯ ♯

And there it was, a more direct mention of what he was trying not to think about and purposefully not saying, that it wasn’t just any high level spell his little brother was fucking around with. It was resurrection, it was restoration, it was dragging his soul back from the veil, and there was a persistent chill in his chest that left Caliban with the firm belief he hadn’t come back quite right. He’d been dead. He didn’t know for how long, but long enough for someone else to find him, to have a tag around his toe and his body zipped up in a bag. He’d kept the first. Some morbid consolation prize, right along with the beer he was drinking now, like either could stand in for coping.

This just looked like his brother’s favorite method, a quick shift in mood, a lashing out, anger he directed Cal’s way that he took in stride, because he was used to it, and because Danny wouldn’t be angry if he didn’t care. As if there was any doubt about that now, because he’d broken too many rules to bring him back. 

“Mercutio, huh?” Words a slow drawl, a detached amusement that he couldn’t clarify to either of them. “Got your Shakespeare wrong. I’m the monster, remember?” 

Which had always been funny to him, that if their family was trying to combat the role of villains that their own history had painted them as, he didn’t think naming one of their firstborn sons after a monster was a great place to start. But he’d still lived up to it in enough ways, more of one than the brother next to him who could bring the dead back from the beyond. That was giving life, that was creation, healing, things he stood as proof of now. And call had always been better at the opposite, the other side of the coin, a destructive force, and he wondered if Danny had forgotten that, doubted it, or if he was just too intent on building those defensive walls.

It had him watching his brother for a moment before he tossed back the rest of his beer too, not wanting the kid to get ahead of him. “It was a good job.” Maybe too good, and if he’d thought it had the time he hadn’t thought about it long enough or hard enough this time. “And they knew exactly who I was when they offered it. So. You think the person on the other end of that spell didn’t know too?"

There’s not even a moment where his brother entertains the idea that they could let this go for a little longer unmentioned. At least not anything substantial. He scoffs and takes another swig of his beer, like he didn’t already know that wasn’t an option. “Killjoy.” 

But it’s the only thing he says and the next words out of his brother’s mouth make him laugh, despite. He can’t say why. Can’t say why that’s the funniest thing he’s heard in a few days. You shouldn’t have done it. He gives Cal a look and even if they had trouble getting serious or sharing their feelings or whatever the fuck a pair of closer brothers might do on a daily basis, he still studies him for a moment, because the only response he has to that is a question that passes his own lips before he even stops to think about it. Quick to act, just like in everything he does. 

“You wouldn’t have?” 

It hangs there for a moment, the question passed between them. That if the roles were reversed, Cal wouldn’t have done the exact same thing if he had the power to do so? He doesn’t dwell on it. Doesn’t know if he even wants the answer, because the truth is Cal wouldn’t have the ability to do it. Cal’s power was different. Destructive and chaotic when he wanted it to be. Danny’s was more often than not the exact opposite. Wielded the right way, his could be destructive, too. But the very nature of it, the very nature of necromancy, was the creation of things. Was breathing life into the dying or decaying. It pushed the bonds of ethics in simply different ways. 

Another snort escapes him at Cal’s statement. “I know,” he assures him as waves for another beer. Like maybe he could find the answer at the bottom of that glass instead of his nearly empty one in front of him. 

But he turns to Cal with a quirk of his lips. “If this is the part where you tell me to get out of town or lay low, then fuck you, let’s hear your next idea.” 

♯ ♯ ♯

The laughter was unexpected and not something Cal knew how to read, no matter how well he thought he knew his little brother. Which some days he thought was purely on a superficial level, and Danny could say the same, and that was just understood. But he laughed, and Cal couldn’t tell why, even after the question came, even after the answer rose swiftly to the back of his throat. He didn’t have that power, so it didn’t matter, and that was the easy response, but the truth was that it didn’t matter, because if it was his brother lying on that table? His little brother, cut open and lifeless? He’d put a gun to the back of some other witch’s head and make them bring him back. Even if it was one of their parents.

Nothing he was willing to say out loud, and if he thought he could lie to his brother if he had to, he still tried not to. Deception and manipulation were traits he’d tried to leave to their ancestors, so instead he shook his head, looking away to focus on the shape of his fingers curving over the top of his glass. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”

Cal gets a snort in response and no argument from him. If anything, Cal was usually the more dependable one. The one people would turn to if they needed something, if they needed reliable, slick, cool, someone who oozed power and the audacity to back up his own mouth. Danny had never quite gotten there. Not so much in the power of his magic, because fuck if he could name someone who could do the things he could. But even so, Danny wasn’t the one who walked into the room and got a mixture of looks of fear and respect. 

That had always been Cal. 

If it rubbed him wrong some days, he’d never put that on his brother. The eldest heir of the Glass family, that kind of title came with a set of assumptions all their own. Less so, these days, but it didn’t hold any less weight. Just different. 

He’s watching his beer get filled when Cal lays it on him. There’s no reaction, at first. Not any sign that he’d heard him, but he did. He’d known when Cal had texted him to come here that this was a conversation they were going to have. Still showed up anyway, so there was that. 

“Do we?” he asks, watching the bartender set his beer down in front of him. He gives the man a nod and waits till he’s off to help another customer before reaching for it and taking a swig. It finally gets him to look at his brother. 

“I mean…” he tilts his head side to side. “We don’t have to.” 

♯ ♯ ♯ 

That left him quiet for a moment, as if it was anything he needed to consider, as if there were some version of this where silence would be an acceptable alternative to anything else they could say about that night. And maybe, maybe, if he thought no one else had seen his corpse, if he’d woken up in the last place he could remember standing instead of on a metal slab, then he would consider it for a little bit longer than the five seconds he gave it now.

Instead a quiet sigh slipped past his lips, another swallow of beer to wet his tongue before he said anything else. “Yes. We do.” And if nothing else followed for a moment, it was a moment of trying to sort out what needed to be said about it, besides a simple why? Danny knew the consequences, they both did, they hadn’t just been taught them once but a thousand times over, with every sideways glance, every whispered conversation that grew hushed whenever anyone with enough Glass blood in them was close enough to hear. Tainted, corrupt, all but outcast for the sins of the past, and if he’d accepted that, he didn’t expect his brother to challenge it in such a blatant and irreversible way.

But then, Danny did challenge just about everything.

Things weren’t different. Not really. How many times had they met for a beer or a greasy sandwich in some diner somewhere just to kindle the bonds of brotherhood? It had been years since they’d lived under the same roof and even then, age and their own fucked up family hierarchy and ideals had always put a distance between them. One Danny usually took in stride. Blood was blood. If he spat on most of the Glass family values, that wasn’t one he took issue with. Even if some days it came easier than others. Their family was…complicated. 

Still was. Nothing was different. Not because one little spell. Even if that spell had Danny reaching beyond the veil, clinging to his brother’s soul, and wrenching it back into their realm. The spell may have broken every code on conduct, warning and all kinds of laws both of the criminal kind and of the more magical kind, but it was still just a spell. Just one thing he’d only needed to see his brother’s body laid out on a metal slab to know he’d do. 

Yeah, things definitely weren’t different. Just a longer side glance at his brother as he made a face at him, pulling himself up onto a stool and giving a lackadaisical, “Traffic,” explanation before he nodded at the bartender. “Heineken. Tap.” 

Then, turning to his brother. “When the fuck you ever been on time, anyway?”

♯ ♯ ♯

It wasn’t just his mouth that had always gotten his little brother in trouble, but the attitude that came with it. The one that rubbed authority figures wrong, that had rubbed their parents wrong, that should’ve annoyed Cal too, but for a moment there was a slim smile on his lips. As if there was nothing new about this at all, a beer at a familiar bar, a strange mix of affection both real and feigned, because blood meant something, but it rarely meant open sincerity. Not the kind required to rip a dead man back from the earth, that had him gasping in cold air and spending too many hours afterwards trying to ignore the lingering ice in his chest.

“Beat you here, didn’t I?" He raised a brow, challenging him to argue it, and ignoring the fact that this time it had nothing to do with timeliness. Everything to do with the already empty glass, how quickly he wanted to down the second, the list of things he should’ve been saying to a brother who wouldn’t be walking free if anyone knew what he’d done for him.

The scar was a jagged, wretched thing, skin left shiny and smooth in the greater gaps from where his flesh had been torn open. The kind of battle magics that weren’t seen that often, not by the civilized, and Caliban had seen more than once. Just not so close, not ripping him open, not the flash of bright light and agonizing pain that didn’t last as long as the blackness that followed. And it was there he put his thoughts on hold, a hand pressing against his chest to rub idly at that scar just beneath his shirt. Trying to focus on nothing but the glass in front of him while he waited alone in the corner of a bar on a Thursday night.

He was halfway through his second pint when the bell above the door went off, a quick glance stolen in its direction to see a familiar face. Then he went back to his pint, enough energy put into keeping his thoughts on little else that he still didn’t know what else he was going to say. Thank you? What the fuck is wrong with you? Some combination of both, and he hadn’t settled on either by the time the kid got closer, so the only thing that left his mouth was a familiar brand of sarcasm.

“Well you took your sweet time getting here.”